Pharaoh's Daughter Comes Down to the River and Gabriel Strikes the Maidens

"And she put it among the reeds" (Exodus 2:3). Rav Elazar said: This means the Red Sea. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman said: A marsh, as it is written, "the reed and the rush shall wither" (Isaiah 19:6). "And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash" (Exodus 2:5) - she went down to cleanse herself from the idols of her father's house. And so Scripture says, "When the LORD shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion" (Isaiah 4:4). "And her maidens walked along" (Exodus 2:5). "Walking" here is none other than an expression of death, and so Scripture says, "Behold, I am going [walking] to die" (Genesis 25:32). "And she saw the ark among the reeds" (Exodus 2:5). When the maidens saw that she wished to rescue Moses, they said to her: Our mistress, it is the way of the world that when a king of flesh and blood issues a decree, even if the whole world does not keep it, his own children and the members of his house keep it; yet you would transgress your father's decree? Then Gabriel came and struck them to the ground.